Former president Asif Ali Zardari. PHOTO: AFP/FILE
The federal government has removed the names of former inspector general police of Sindh Rana Maqbool and DIG Karachi Farooq Amin Qureshi from the exit control list (ECL).
Both the former police officers are wanted in the case of wounding the tongue of Asif Ali Zardari during torturous interrogation when he was imprisoned in the second tenure of Nawaz Sharif.
Rana Maqbool had filed a case against Zardari for causing injury to himself in jail.
When the table turned in 1999 and Nawaz government was wound up by Pervez Musharraf, the then IG Rana Maqbool was also implicated in the airplane hijacking case along with Nawaz Sharif and his compatriots.
In 2008, when Asif Ali Zardari became the president, the tongue cutting case became active, but Rana Maqbool and Farooq Qureshi stayed in Punjab under the wings of PML-N and refused to appear for any court hearing claiming threats to their lives.
The PPP government’s interior minister Rehman Malik had put the names of these two ex-police officers on ECL.
Now, under PML-N government, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar has directed removing names of Rana Maqbool and Farooq Amin Qureshi from ECL.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 30th, 2013.
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It is only fair that all elected Sindh politicians be tried in LHC and detained by non-Sindhi police and military officials. They can do anything when power drunk but what happened to them in East Pakistan and those who took action against MQM in the past? How long can these criminals escape in Punjab under those who had attacked SC while in session?
ET, slight corrections please... Asif Zardari was jailed in 1996 when Farooq Laghari was the President and Mairaj Khalid was the Caretaker Prime Minister of Pakistan. Whereas, Nawaz Sharif became Prime Minister after the general elections held in February 1997. Zardari was jailed because of the murder trial of Mir Murtaza Bhutto, who was killed in a Police Action in September 1996 near his home and a few yards away from MidEast Hospital in Clifton Karachi. The jail sentence was in fact a "state protection" to Asif Zardari because the cronies (Al-Zulfiqar) of Murtaza Bhutto had pledged to take revenge. Thereafter, various mega Corruption cases including SGS/Cotecna, French submarines and ARY gold smuggling were opened against the former ruling couple (Asif Zardari and his now late wife Benazir Bhutto). The money from these kickbacks was used to purchase expensive properties in UK (Surrey Palace) & France (Chataus) and rest of the money was laundered to Swiss Accounts. These are the same cases that were used by General Musharraf as a bargaining tool for NRO in 2007. When the Supreme Court nullified the NRO in 2009, the cronies of Asif Zardari started taking refuge behind article-248 that provides indemnity to the President. We hope that the looted wealth will now be recovered from Asif Zardari's Swiss Accounts laundered from Pakistan.
Yes ... and they will stay off ECL till next PPP government !!!!
Barbarism is at a peak.
They should be charged for not slitting the throat!
Zardari's billions of dollars could turn things around for this country but the question is who would squeeze those billions of dollars of this country out of him??? Nawaz Sharif and retired general kayani have been his biggest supporters in his massive corruption rule so practically there's no hope for us ordinary Pakistanis, we would keep paying for the corruption of these people by paying higher taxes, utilities and suffering a broken down state while they buy new properties from Ajman to London
They deserve pride of performance as they worked for PMLN and it is his government.
Blatant disregard of the court orders!
What about the thousands that were killed in Karachi? will their cases ever be interrogated?